Right Career Choice?

[jj12]

First off, I'd like to say that this is my first post on here, however I do scan this website periodically because I feel it is one of the best places for information. Now on to my question(s). I am struggling with what direction I want to go in as far as my career is concerned. I will be graduating with a B.S. in cellular and molecular biology from a relatively small college that is known for its engineering, which is what I originally intended on doing (mechanical engineer). After a year and a half of math courses (I hold a minor in math - pre-cal thru cal 3 and differential equations, a couple classes of higher level stats, etc) I decided that although I am decent at math and computer programming, it is definitely not for me. I then considered meteorology because I am a total weather nerd...I can't get enough of storms. However, with research I would be programming all kinds of mathematical models into computers, which is what I want to avoid. So I turned to biology, because I have always been fascinated by diseases (I swear I was a hypochondriac as a child ha) which led me to research different diseases and their causes in my free time for fun. Needless to say I enjoy cell biology, microbiology, those type of classes. Therefore, I briefly considered medical school, but decided that I didn't care too much for the clinical, patient aspect of it, I'm more interested in the diseases/disorders themselves. That led me to public health, specifically epidemiology of communicable and non-communicable diseases. My biggest fear however since I don't have much experience with what the field actually entails is that I will be back to square one - the whole math/computer programming thing. Therefore my question is to all of you...Seeing as where my interests lie in disease, what would you recommend as a general topic for me to do some looking into? Because I feel as if I am looking over alot of areas, and basically moving in circles.
Sorry for the long post, Thanks!

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[member 13588]

If you go into public health, I am not sure you can avoid the whole mathematical modeling thing. In fact, most interdisciplinary science fields require some form of statistical and mathematical expertise as a foundation. So unless you are looking at a hardcore biology or chemistry degree, you will see "modeling" everywhere. As a Biology degree undergraduate with some Calc coursework, I considered fields such as bioinformatics and biological engineering before discovering and happily settling with environmental health sciences MPH. If you have work experience you could consider a management degree. You didn't want to be a doctor, but have you thought about pharmacy school or any of the other professional schools? If you don't want to deal with human patients, what about vet school? I was in your position last summer, so message me if you want to discuss more.

 

[Awapi]

Unfortunately you're going to come across a lot of computer programming in Public Health as well, especially if you go into epidemiology, but even in other concentrations. SAS, STATA, SPSS, EPI INFO, SUDAAN, etc computer programming is used quite a bit in the analysis of collected data for most papers you would write. I'm in the second semester of my first year, I spent almost 15 hours computer programming this week and it's only the third week of class and it's only Wednesday night .

Not to say public health is not for you, but you made a point of referencing your desire to avoid computer programming so I just wanted to make sure you knew that it's an important facet of an MPH. It would be important to consider concentrations/schools if you wanted to continue to avoid it, but to get a well-rounded MPH I think it's going to be impossible! When my friends were applying for work study jobs, the first thing that was asked of 99% of them was "do you know SAS?" (granted this is a popular program at the CDC where I am so you may hear it more here than other places). The ones that weren't asked that were mostly my friends who are concentrating in behavioral sciences and health education that are helping with program implementation. Even my friend who is in Health Policy Management uses SAS programming regularly in her work study job, it's a skill that employers expect you to have coming out of an MPH.

Good luck with your decisions!

 

[MPHandPsych]

Unfortunately you're going to come across a lot of computer programming in Public Health as well, especially if you go into epidemiology, but even in other concentrations. SAS, STATA, SPSS, EPI INFO, SUDAAN, etc computer programming is used quite a bit in the analysis of collected data for most papers you would write.

Not to say public health is not for you, but you made a point of referencing your desire to avoid computer programming so I just wanted to make sure you knew that it's an important facet of an MPH.

When my friends were applying for work study jobs, the first thing that was asked of 99% of them was "do you know SAS?" (granted this is a popular program at the CDC where I am so you may hear it more here than other places).

Good luck with your decisions!

I would echo this...my concentration was Prevention & Community Health & within that department I obtained my MPH in Maternal & Child Health...I spent a ridiculous amount of time using SPSS (and some with SAS). Several of the core courses required for most programs require statistical types of methods & applications so it will be hard to avoid this aspect of PH. And as the person above mentioned- you really need this classroom experience for many different jobs in PH since changing policy or implementing new programs and whatnot depends on getting the research to back it up- it's all about the numbers!

 

[Stories]

Medical school is a good bet if you have no interest in ever doing anything mathematical. All biomedical research involve a good amount of statistics.

 

[jj12]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the insight and advice. It's not that I hate and never want to touch a computer or anything, it's just that I'd rather the majority of my job be lab/field based as opposed to sitting behind a desk running numbers. However, like I said I have relatively no experience as to what an epidemiologist job entails on a daily basis, the best I can do for now is to just read the generic descriptions they have over the internet. I have been trying to get in touch with a few around my area, but it hasn't worked out so far.

As far as medical school, everyone talks about how you have to be extremely passionate about it as far as helping people goes, otherwise you won't make it through. For me, although I of course want to help people, I don't really want to be seeing patients all day long and be on call. I have a little experience volunteering in a hospital and shadowing a few doctors, and I intend on acquiring some more, but from what I have experienced so far, I am hesitant about medical school, which everyone has told me that if you aren't absolutely sure about it, you won't make it through. So, who knows. Just thought I'd offer a little more information on me and that perhaps I'm overly picky? Ha oh well. Thanks again!

 

[Stories]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the insight and advice. It's not that I hate and never want to touch a computer or anything, it's just that I'd rather the majority of my job be lab/field based as opposed to sitting behind a desk running numbers. However, like I said I have relatively no experience as to what an epidemiologist job entails on a daily basis, the best I can do for now is to just read the generic descriptions they have over the internet. I have been trying to get in touch with a few around my area, but it hasn't worked out so far.

As far as medical school, everyone talks about how you have to be extremely passionate about it as far as helping people goes, otherwise you won't make it through. For me, although I of course want to help people, I don't really want to be seeing patients all day long and be on call. I have a little experience volunteering in a hospital and shadowing a few doctors, and I intend on acquiring some more, but from what I have experienced so far, I am hesitant about medical school, which everyone has told me that if you aren't absolutely sure about it, you won't make it through. So, who knows. Just thought I'd offer a little more information on me and that perhaps I'm overly picky? Ha oh well. Thanks again!

I would suggest looking into some molecular epidemiology programs (PhD for the most part). You get hands-on lab experience along with the traditional epidemology training.

 

[OneDay81]

I would suggest looking into some molecular epidemiology programs (PhD for the most part). You get hands-on lab experience along with the traditional epidemology training.

Good suggestion...

A couple of other fields to consider:
medical/clinical lab tech
pathology assistant
veterinary pathologist

Also, plenty of graduate degrees in pathology, pathobiology, molecular disease, molecular forensics, etc exist

 

[jj12]

Thanks for all the information. I definitely will be looking into all these options, as well as still looking for some shadowing positions under an epidemiologist. I do have a follow up question though, sorry if it seems kind of redundant, but you all seem extremely knowledgable about the subject so I hope you'll forgive me...

When working with the statistical computer packages you all mentioned (SAS and the like), I'm not quite familiar with them at all...do they revolve around you actually having to write the code for the program or are they more directed toward entering data into a general program and just coming up with the model based on that? Sorry if that seems like a vague question, basically I am trying to figure out if there is any software programming involved in which you basically have to do all the data calculations/program the code yourself, or if you are doing more of the scientific research and taking the data you have learned and entering it to acquire a mathematical model. Thanks!

 

[Stories]

Thanks for all the information. I definitely will be looking into all these options, as well as still looking for some shadowing positions under an epidemiologist. I do have a follow up question though, sorry if it seems kind of redundant, but you all seem extremely knowledgable about the subject so I hope you'll forgive me...

When working with the statistical computer packages you all mentioned (SAS and the like), I'm not quite familiar with them at all...do they revolve around you actually having to write the code for the program or are they more directed toward entering data into a general program and just coming up with the model based on that? Sorry if that seems like a vague question, basically I am trying to figure out if there is any software programming involved in which you basically have to do all the data calculations/program the code yourself, or if you are doing more of the scientific research and taking the data you have learned and entering it to acquire a mathematical model. Thanks!

Speaking from the research/academic side of things, you can use whatever statistical packages that you like. All that matters is that you do the statistics that are necessary for your research and publications.

So if you were doing a genome-wide association scan your statistics would be different than someone working on a pyschometric behavioral test.

Basically, you need proper training in statistical methods if you haven't received it yet. It's something that comes with time and practice.

 

[Awapi]

When working with the statistical computer packages you all mentioned (SAS and the like), I'm not quite familiar with them at all...do they revolve around you actually having to write the code for the program or are they more directed toward entering data into a general program and just coming up with the model based on that? Sorry if that seems like a vague question, basically I am trying to figure out if there is any software programming involved in which you basically have to do all the data calculations/program the code yourself, or if you are doing more of the scientific research and taking the data you have learned and entering it to acquire a mathematical model. Thanks!

It also depends on where you go/where you want to work. The CDC pretty much exclusively uses SAS. Emory requires A LOT of it for classes, but I also have a class that requires us to use Epi Info so we'll learn a different statistical program. But SAS is the basis of our epi and biostats classes, even the core curriculum biostats course that everyone has to take regardless of concentration. While you're in your MPH you'll probably have little choice over what statistical package you use as your classes will probably dictate a medium for everyone to use. I'd recommend looking into what package the schools you are considering use in their biostat/epi classes so you can at least be familiar with the idea of the program before classes start. You'll definitely get the training you need though, I'd never heard of SAS on the first day of school (reason for previous advice), but now I feel confident using it.

On to your specific question though: SAS is not intuitive at all, you have to write all your own code and it's often frustrating to debug especially in a data cleaning process, but it's very useful. Modeling and linear regression code can get very complicated and you need quite a bit of training to do it correctly. Even people who are "experts" in SAS have a lot of program functions they've never used/know how to use in the program, so it's definitely something that you have to constantly work at, but, again, it's really useful and you start to love it (not to mention the camaraderie of making SAS jokes and having marathon SAS work parties in the computer areas at school). Some of the other programs have drop down menus or choices for functions (STATA, Epi Info, Open Epi) but SAS is not like that, you can copy and paste your own code that you've already used which is helpful, but there's no auto-populating. A big problem with having a blanket program or acquired mathematical model is data cleaning, when you are collecting and entering data as an epidemiologist you will probably have people who enter the data for you and there will always be mistakes, so a lot of my time in SAS is spent cleaning the data that I have. Even little things...example: for y/n questions, y is different from Y so you would have to recode them all to be either upper or lower case or the program will read them as two different answers.

Anyway, I digress...

I live, eat, and breath SAS right now, so if you have any other questions about the program feel free to PM me, especially if you are considering Emory, Good Luck!

 

[Stories]

It also depends on where you go/where you want to work. The CDC pretty much exclusively uses SAS. Emory requires A LOT of it for classes, but I also have a class that requires us to use Epi Info so we'll learn a different statistical program. But SAS is the basis of our epi and biostats classes, even the core curriculum biostats course that everyone has to take regardless of concentration. While you're in your MPH you'll probably have little choice over what statistical package you use as your classes will probably dictate a medium for everyone to use. I'd recommend looking into what package the schools you are considering use in their biostat/epi classes so you can at least be familiar with the idea of the program before classes start. You'll definitely get the training you need though, I'd never heard of SAS on the first day of school (reason for previous advice), but now I feel confident using it.

On to your specific question though: SAS is not intuitive at all, you have to write all your own code and it's often frustrating to debug especially in a data cleaning process, but it's very useful. Modeling and linear regression code can get very complicated and you need quite a bit of training to do it correctly. Even people who are "experts" in SAS have a lot of program functions they've never used/know how to use in the program, so it's definitely something that you have to constantly work at, but, again, it's really useful and you start to love it (not to mention the camaraderie of making SAS jokes and having marathon SAS work parties in the computer areas at school). Some of the other programs have drop down menus or choices for functions (STATA, Epi Info, Open Epi) but SAS is not like that, you can copy and paste your own code that you've already used which is helpful, but there's no auto-populating. A big problem with having a blanket program or acquired mathematical model is data cleaning, when you are collecting and entering data as an epidemiologist you will probably have people who enter the data for you and there will always be mistakes, so a lot of my time in SAS is spent cleaning the data that I have. Even little things...example: for y/n questions, y is different from Y so you would have to recode them all to be either upper or lower case or the program will read them as two different answers.

Anyway, I digress...

I live, eat, and breath SAS right now, so if you have any other questions about the program feel free to PM me, especially if you are considering Emory, Good Luck!

Try out SAS Enterprise if you want drop down menus if you want a GUI

 

[Awapi]

Try out SAS Enterprise if you want drop down menus if you want a GUI

Haha, thanks Stories, we've got it on our server but I haven't ever really liked it, but some people do, good suggestion!